Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Day/Poem #3: A Child Said


As I said yesterday, I think that translators, especially of poetry, are an incredible breed. To be able to balance the literal meaning of words with the overall feeling of a poem is really incredible. That being said, here is a poem in French. "A Child Says," by Raymond Queneau, captures the best moments of poetry.


UN ENFANT A DIT
Un enfant a dit
je sais des poèmes
un enfant a dit
chsais des poésies

Un enfant a dit

mon coeur est plein d'elles
un enfant a dit
par coeur ça suffit


Un enfant a dit
ils en savent des choses 

un enfant a dit 

et tout par écrit

Si l'poète pouvait
s'enfuir à tir-d'aile 
les enfants voudraient 
partir avec lui

Raymond Queneau




1 comment:

Vanessa said...

And in a moment of irony, since my French is so bad these days, I had to google translate a bunch of words into English for my *partial* and always incomplete comprehension...
Vanessa